Stephen Butchard is a British screenwriter and television producer, best known for adapting

Bernard Cornwell Bernard Cornwell (born 23 February 1944) is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written ''The Saxon ...

's ''

The Saxon Stories ''The Saxon Stories'' (also known as ''Saxon Tales''/''Saxon Chronicles'' in the US and ''The Warrior Chronicles'' and most recently as ''The Last Kingdom'' series) is a historical novel series written by Bernard Cornwell about the birth of E ...

'' into the BBC/Netflix drama series ''

The Last Kingdom ''The Last Kingdom'' is the first historical novel in The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, published in 2004. This story introduces Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a Saxon noble who is kidnapped by Danish Vikings as a young child and is assimilated ...

''.

Early life

Butchard was born in Liverpool. He trained as an engineer and spent a year in Beijing, China (September 1993 to October 1994), working on the Beijing underground rail network.

Career

Butchard began writing plays while working as a engineer. In 1997, he won the Dennis Potter Award for '‘Soft Sand, Blue Sea’', which secured him representation. During the 2000s, he wrote several television films and series such as ''

Always and Everyone ''Always and Everyone'' (later known as ''A&E'') is a British television medical drama, broadcast on ITV, that ran for four series between 7 June 1999 and 22 August 2002. Set in the Accident and Emergency department of Saint Victor's city hospi ...

'', ''

House of Saddam ''House of Saddam'' is a 2008 British docudrama television miniseries that charted the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. A co-production between BBC Television and HBO Films, the series was first broadcast on BBC Two (in the United Kingdom) in fo ...

'' and ''

Vincent Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer''). People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor *Vincent van Gogh ...

''. In 2010, BBC One would broadcast his mini-series ''

Five Daughters ''Five Daughters'' is a British television drama miniseries starring Ian Hart, Sarah Lancashire, Jaime Winstone and Juliet Aubrey. Set in 2006, it is about the five victims of the Ipswich serial murders and how the crime affected their families ...

'', starring

Ian Hart Ian Davies (born 8 October 1964), better known by his stage name Ian Hart, is an English actor. His most notable roles are Rabbit in the Channel Four drama miniseries '' One Summer'' (1983), Joe O'Reilly in the biopic ''Michael Collins'' (1996 ...

and

Sarah Lancashire Sarah-Jane Abigail Lancashire (born 10 October 1964) is an English actress from Oldham, England. She graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1986 and began her career in local theatre, whilst teaching drama classes at the Sal ...

. Set in 2006, it is about the

Ipswich serial murders The Ipswich serial murders, commonly known as the work of the Suffolk Strangler, took place between 30 October and 10 December 2006, during which time the bodies of five murdered sex workers were discovered at different locations near Ipswich, ...

. Butchard said about the project. "Our hope is that this drama provides a glimpse of the real girls their families knew, and also leads to further debate on the impact of drugs and sex industries upon every town, every city in this country... and what action is, or isn't, being taken." In 2012, Butchard wrote the cop drama ''

Good Cop ''Good Cop'' is a British police procedural television series, written and created by Stephen Butchard, that first broadcast on BBC One on 30 August 2012. The plot centres on an ordinary police constable, John Paul Rocksavage ( Warren Brown ...

'', following a constable whose partner is murdered. Following the shooting of two police officers in

Tameside The Metropolitan Borough of Tameside is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in England. It is named after the River Tame, Greater Manchester, River Tame, which flows through the borough, and includes the towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Aud ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

, on 18 September, the BBC postponed the final episode, originally scheduled for Thursday 20 September. It would air later, on Saturday 13 October 2012. Butchard adapted and showran the first three series of ''The Last Kingdom'', which saw a transition from BBC Two to Netflix as distributor for the third series. In 2020, Channel 4 and Hulu broadcast his war thriller '' Baghdad Central''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butchard, Stephen Living people 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers British television writers British male screenwriters British television producers Year of birth missing (living people)